K turned 16mo today. Our doc told us to get her off the bottle by 18mo at the latest. She's been drinking from a sippy cup for 9-10months now, and from a regular cup for a month or two. So far, she'll drink anything but milk out of those. But milk must be drunk from a bottle. She's getting 3 bottles a day right now. One after she wakes, one after her afternoon nap, and one before bed. We tried buying special new sippy cups and using one for her milk last night, but that was a no go. We tried again for the afternoon bottle today, but again she only took a couple of sips and then refused to drink any more.
If you've got any tips on how to get a baby to drink milk from a cup instead of a bottle, I'd love to hear them!
K's now started to say "Nein nein" ("no no") when she does stuff that's forbidden, or when she doesn't want something. She really likes to test the limits though. She's not allowed to touch the window covering in the living room, and yet she'll still touch it. I say "nein", and she'll smile at me and start touching it again, and then back up into it to squish it against the window. At that point, I have to take her away from the window and put her somewhere else.
She's giving the sweetest hugs and kisses these days. Loves to hug her teddy or baby. And she'll come up when you ask for a kiss and just wrap her arms around your neck and snuggle in to your face. Aww. She loves to share her food with you, and absolutely loves to plonk herself down on my lap when I'm sitting on the floor.
16 months is a wonderful age.
In other news, I finally BDd with DH for the fourth time since Feb. And for the fourth time since Mar 2009, as sad as it is to say that. I'd like to have another baby, but he wants only one. I've had EWCM for the past few days and had what I think was a positive OPK last night. When I tried to have my way with him, he was in a foul mood from a crummy day, felt awful because his eczema's really bad, and turned me down. I was pretty upset. I don't think he's initiated sex with me once in over 2 years, so it felt like a big rejection to me. Today when I said we could take advantage of K's naptime this afternoon to make up for it, he said that when all our sex in the last few years was focused on baby-making, it was hard to get it out of his head that we could get pregnant again. I said I thought that we had a less than 5% chance, and that maybe we should leave it up to God. Just as we were about to get down to it, he said that if we got pregnant, K would be 26 mo old and more independent, so maybe it wouldn't be the end of the world. That's the first inkling I've had that DH might even consider a second. But since I don't want there to be a huge age gap between kids if we do have another, I figure we might as well be sort-of-trying now. We'll see what happens...
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4 comments:
It gets harder to transition away from a bottle the older your daughter gets. Every day you wait, it'll be more of a struggle, as you're discovering. Our triplets transitioned late too. It's a battle of wills now.
Once they could drink from sippy cups, we took the bottles away one feeding at a time. We started giving them sippies with milk in it in the morning, but after lunch and dinner, they still had their bottles. That way, if they didn't drink milk in the am, they still had some in the afternoon and evening. Plus, they were the happiest overall in the morning, and so that was the easiest one to drop first. We did that for a few days.
Then we replaced both the morning and lunchtime bottles with sippies. Just ignore the crying and whining and most importantly, don't give in. We replaced the bottle before bedtime last.
When you replace the last feeding's bottles with sippies, be sure to hide the bottles so they don't see them.
Other parents do it cold turkey. We couldn't do that, because our girls were preemies and didn't eat well enough to go without milk, even for a few days. Typically, kids might stop drinking milk for 2-3 days, but eventually they catch on. Our drank less than a full feeding of milk at each feeding for a while after we switched, but then they settled into it, and drank as much as they did from bottles. Just give it time after you switch, and stand your ground.
She's now using the bottle as something that gives her security, and she's attached to it in the emotional sense. Good luck! You're the boss. :)
This is a rough transition. We had luck by putting sugarless Nestle strawberry or chocolate powder in the milk via a sippy cup. Now she doesn't cry for a bottle! She cries for milk! Mission accomplished :-)
You might just have to go cold turkey. We did that (dropping one bottle at a time), and although they did just drink a little at first, once they realized that they weren't getting bottles anymore to make the amount up, they accepted the new routine and drank enough out of the sippy. If you do that, I'd just get in extra daily those days via yogurt and cheese to compensate. I agree that the longer you wait the harder it will be for her. (As I'm typing this, I am telling myself: MUST commit to get rid of the pacifier and follow your own advice!)
Well, what I did was from the breast to a cup, but I made the cup more attractive by allowing my son to take the cup where ever he wanted, as opposed to nursing which I insisted he do in his bedroom away from all the fun toys.
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